Murder, outrage, impasse: how gun crime bedevils US

The United States is again forced to confront its deadly distinction as the world's only developed country to be plagued by mass school shootings.

After a teenager shot dead 17 people in a Florida high school on Wednesday, there is zero indication that the United States is in any way ready to adopt major new reforms to stop such tragedies occurring again.

In a recurring nightmare, appalling millions of Americans and unfathomable overseas, the Florida carnage was the 18th US school shooting since January 1. Each year, the country loses around 33,000 people to gun violence.

Yet each time it is the same. First come the horrified reactions, then unity in the face of tragedy, followed by outrage, political polarization and then impasse.

If the debate rings hollow, it's because both sides are immutable.

At one end stand those who oppose any gun control in the name of the sacred second amendment to the US Constitution.

They argue that no law can prevent deranged individuals and criminals from obtaining a weapon, nor from opening fire in a school. Given the dangers, law-abiding citizens might as well be armed to protect themselves.

Those on the other side have given up any hope of meaningful, national reform in a majority-led Republican Congress. Former Democratic president Barack Obama also failed in a bid to enact gun controls, falling victim to partisan rancor.

- Revolution glory -

Instead reformers concentrate their fight on local politics, trying to convince elected officials in a greater number of states to make criminal and psychiatric checks compulsory before any gun sale.

Even this minimal objective is often insurmountable in a country that places the gun at the heart of its mythology of a nation born in the blood of its revolution and which remains proud of its Wild West heros.

Politicians bankrolled by the National Rifle Association, the powerful lobby group that endorsed Donald Trump's presidential run, refuse even to accept that a fire arm is by definition a lethal object and that widening access is risky.

On Thursday, Trump delivered a televised address to declare the United Sates a country in mourning but avoided all mention of firearms.

He has portrayed the Florida massacre as the act of someone mentally disturbed, without mentioning how the shooter could have acquired an assault rifle at 19, an age few Americans can legally buy a beer or cigarettes.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled out any additional reform, saying instead that existing laws that try to limit gun ownership for criminals and those who are dangerously ill, should instead be enforced.

But a direct correlation between the availability of guns and the frequency of shootings is clear in the statistics.

"Every nation is home to disturbed teenagers who have been expelled from school. Only America gives them easy access to tactical gear, semi-automatic rifles and bulk ammo," says Shannon Watts, founder of "Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America."

US citizens, who account for fewer than five percent of the world population, make up nearly half the armed number of civilians on the planet. The homicide rate by shooting is 25 times higher than in other developed countries.

- Prayers, complicity -

The risk of dying by gunshot in America is 300 times higher than in Japan.

"If more guns and fewer gun laws made us safer, America would be the safest country on earth. Instead, we have the highest rate of gun violence of any developed nation," says Watts.

As with every other day after a shooting, NRA supporters pushed back Thursday on this embarrassing question in the name of dignity for the victims and their families.

"There's a time to continue to have these conversations," said Republican Governor of Florida, Rick Scott. He and Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio called for prayers.

"Don't tell me tomorrow isn't the appropriate time to debate gun violence. If you're a political leader doing nothing about this slaughter, you're an accomplice," said Senator Chris Muphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.

Even celebrity intervention is likely to fall on deaf ears.

"We owe it to our children and our teachers to keep them safe while at school. Prayers won't do this: action will. Congress, please do your job and protect Americans from senseless gun violence," tweeted Kim Kardashian.

"Prayers without accordant action are silent lies told to oneself, heard by no God, amounting to nothing," said the actor Mark Ruffalo.

© 2018 AFP